STAREAST 2012 - Software Testing Conference

PRESENTATIONS

Help simplify the entire development process, from design to deployment. Bring a vision to life using powerful prototyping, modeling, and design tools. Work more efficiently with integrated testing and debugging tools that enable delivery of high-quality solutions.

When Keith Klain took over Barclays Capital Global Test Center, he found an organization focused entirely on managing projects, managing processes, and managing stakeholders—the last most unsuccessfully.

Testers and managers have wrestled with the problem of evaluating software products and testing efforts, often using approaches derived from manufacturing, construction, and physical sciences. These approaches have been partially successful because software products aren't physical products.

Lightning Talks are a very popular part of many STAR conferences. Lightning Talk sessions consist of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period and are the opportunity to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation.

Almost daily, we see reports of software failures that harm enterprises and impact the brand, putting testing organizations and their efforts in the spotlight. Fortunately, testers are now in one of the most exciting times in the software industry’s history!

Managers play a critical role in the success or failure of test automation. Although most testers and some test managers have a realistic view of what automation can and cannot do, many senior managers have firm ideas about automation that are misguided—or downright wrong.

The best software development teams find ways for programmers and testers to work closely together. These teams recognize that programmers and testers each bring their own unique strengths and perspectives to the project. However, working in agile teams requires us to unlearn many of the patterns that traditional development taught us.

One of the challenges associated with testing in agile projects is selecting test techniques that “fit” the dynamic nature of agile practices. How much functional and non-functional testing should you do? What is the appropriate mix of unit, integration, regression, and system testing? And how do you balance these decisions in an environment that fosters continuous change and shifting priorities?

DevOps is an increasingly popular approach to ensure that the delivered code is stable, capable of working as advertised, and available in production immediately. In a continuous delivery environment, the team members must be multi-skilled and able to handle all delivery activities-development, testing, and sysadmin tasks. Manoj Narayanan describes how testing is implemented through DevOps tenets and how it compares to the more familiar agile methodology.

If testers sit passively through agile planning, important testing activities will be missed or glossed over. Testing late in the sprint becomes a bottleneck, quickly diminishing the advantages of agile development. However, testers can actively advocate for customers’ concerns while helping the team implement robust solutions. Rob Sabourin shows how testers contribute to the estimation, task definition, clarification, and the scoping work required to implement user stories.